Love and War
by Mynuet
Summary: Post-Hogwarts - Ginny leaves Harry after the defeat of Voldemort. What will she do about the baby? And where does Draco fit in the picture?
1. Torn

Genevive Marie Weasley rose out of her bed, walking slowly to the window which was open to let in the breeze. She ignored her nakedness, her skin seeming to glow in the moonlight, her hair tumbling down her back in tangled waves. It was summertime, and the air was heavy with the heat and the smell from the rose garden directly under where she stood. The colors seemed to be leeched out of everything she saw, her hair and the roses losing all vividness and fading to a grayish blue in the half light. She felt like she was fading, becoming a ghost of who she might have become.  
  
The figure on the bed behind her stirred and she didn't even notice that she grimaced, her hand drifting over her stomach. She didn't know if there was life inside of it, if she could blame the disruption in her monthly courses on illness or tension or any number of things that wouldn't have forced her to face herself, the self she had buried in the all consuming desire for him.   
  
She'd always been in love with him. She couldn't remember a time in her life when his name didn't thrill her, make her spin dreams about what it would be like to be his, and to have him for her very own. He'd been a hero of myths to her, a boy almost her age who was grander than anything, more important and special than anyone else, the savior of the world. Then he'd appeared in her brother's life and she was consumed even further with thoughts of him, pretty fantasies of her first kiss with this dark haired boy who had to be handsome, because he was who he was. From the day she'd first seen him, from a distance on a train platform, she'd decided that the only true masculine beauty involved dark hair and green eyes.  
  
She'd only fallen harder when the stories came home in her brother's letters, of how he'd suffered growing up, of how brave and modest he was, of how lonely he'd been. She resolved that she would always, always, love him with all her might, her adoration offered with no conditions, as it should be, because it was for him. Her daydreams now were about how she would save him from the sadness he'd grown up in, her love helping him see what a good person he was, and how worthy he was of all the good things in the world.   
  
He stirred again and she went back to the bed, almost seeming to float on the breeze that stirred the gauzy curtains and made wisps of her hair float around her face. He liked her hair long, so she only ever cut her bangs, and most of her hair was too heavy for the slight wind to lift. She lifted the sheet and slid into the bed, his arms automatically coming to wrap around her waist, pulling her close enough for his face to bury itself in her shoulder. It was uncomfortable for her, but it was the way he slept best, the way that the nightmares were least likely to plague him. She stared up at the canopy, wondering what she would do.  
  
There was a press conference scheduled for later that day. Voldemort had been defeated, and every witch and wizard alive seemed to want a part of it, a part of The Boy Who Saved Us All, as the early edition of the Daily Prophet had named him. She had been at his side for many previous ones, in good times and in bad. She sometimes thought cynically that she didn't have to be there, really. She could just send a cardboard cutout with an adoring smile and perhaps a stock phrase or two about how wonderful he was, how happy he made her, the importance of his role in preserving the wizarding world that her family could trace its roots through from untold centuries ago. She never said anything to him, though. He hated when she complained, and she couldn't bring herself to add to his burdens.  
  
She let her hand drift up to trace his forehead, now free of the scar that he had cursed and hated even as he learned how to part his hair to best display it. Publicity was important, after all. The hearts and minds of the average person might be a less bloody battlefield than direct confrontations between the forces of Dark and Light, but no less important for all that. He had learned from her brother how to crack jokes that would make him seem like a lovable scamp, and from the girl who was now her sister how to be serious and scholarly. It was when his two best friends formed a romance that he had started to spend time with her, their relationship shifting from friendship to intimacy without any particular fanfare. The press had invented a romantic mythos around their relationship, but it had been no more complicated than him finally accepting the love and adoration she had offered for so long.  
  
It had been the night that she almost lost her brother that he had first come to her. Ron had tried to protect his best friend, and it almost cost him his life. He would never be able to run again, although the mediwizards had been optimistic about his chances of walking with only a slight limp. Harry had heard that, standing at Ron's bedside, and fought to hold back tears. Ron had managed a gallant smile and said that it didn't matter; he'd simply use his cane to trip anyone trying to run away from him. Hermione had burst into laughter and then lain besides him, sobbing into his shoulder even as she laughed and called him names. It had been too intimate, and the family had left them in peace, warning the hospital staff away before dispersing to find sleep after the long, harrowing hours of keeping a desperate vigil, as if their exhausted worry would make the difference between Ron's living or dying.  
  
She had taken Harry's hand, leading him to his bed. She'd made him sit down, his motions those of an automaton, capable of being manipulated but not of controlling his own actions. She'd knelt at his feet to remove his shoes and almost jumped out of her skin when his hand raised itself to the side of her face, his fingers plunging into her hair as he tilted her head upwards to receive his kiss. He had taken her clothes off purposefully, his mouth moving on her skin as he whispered words, not of love, but of guilt. His words became indistinct but all she could do was lift her arms around him to hold him to her breast and soothe him, even as he buried himself in her body, his eyes tight shut as he tried to lose himself into her.   
  
It had not been like in the romance novels that fueled her fantasies. It had hurt, and his fumbling had been awkward. Only when she had closed her eyes and reminded herself that this was Harry Potter, who she had dreamed of for all of her life, had it felt anywhere close to right. It got better, after the first time, but it had never approached the way that the books and magazines and gossiping women had always led her to believe it was supposed to feel. She was convinced that the problem was with her, a result of some flaw within her that had made her thrill to the brief touch of the memory of evil before she had lost the fight for consciousness and fallen to the floor of the Chamber of Secrets.  
  
There had been a boy once that made her feel a small touch of that thrill. He wasn't forbidden, because it would never occur to anyone that he might be tempting enough to require her to be warned away. No one knew about the time they had spent together, starting the year of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. She was never quite sure how it was that it had started, but they had developed the habit of walking together every morning, through rain and snow and sun, twice around the lake without fail, in the half light before dawn when the barrier between the real world and the dream one was thin enough to allow for their fragile, unspoken friendship.  
  
He had kissed her once. He had taken his hands in hers, his grey eyes intent on hers as he told her that he loved her, that he wanted to be with her, no matter what happened. She could remember how his face had hardened when she said Harry's name, the moment when she could see in his eyes that his heart was breaking, before he had nodded and retreated behind an impassive façade. He had walked away, and she had redoubled her efforts to show Harry he was loved, trying to make up for the moment when her heart had betrayed him by wanting to run after the boy who hated Harry Potter, but loved Ginny Weasley.  
  
There had been no more walks around the lake. When they passed in the hallways, he always seemed to look through her, his gaze sliding past her as she walked behind Harry and Ron and Hermione, later gliding without pause over the way Harry would clasp her hand in his as they walked along. He didn't even sneer at her; it was as if she had ceased to exist to him. She told herself fiercely that it was better that way, that it didn't hurt, that it was /Harry/ she loved. He had only spoken to her once after their parting, and then only long enough to whisper in her ear that he would always love her as he slipped something into her pocket. She had cried as she read his letter, which had said simply that he respected her decision, even if he didn't like it, and that if she ever needed him, she should open the necklace that had been enclosed, and he would come. She had burned the letter, but the necklace never left her person, getting wrapped around a wrist if she couldn't wear it around her neck for any reason.  
  
She had made her decision, though, and she was not one to back away from a promise. Harry needed her, and she would be there for him. There were times when she felt like her heart would break, because she knew that he didn't love her, and he never had. Oh, he was fond of her, and grateful that she was always there, ready to provide an oasis of calm in his troubled world. He cried in her arms before presenting the world with the face that they needed for their one last hope to show. She didn't fight, not like her brothers and friends fought. Everyone had their part in the drama of the war, and hers was not to bravely charge in against impossible odds. No, her part was to sit at home, trying to fill the time with things that might have been normal if she hadn't been constantly looking up to see the clock hands of her loved ones hovering over 'mortal peril'.   
  
Now, though... The war was over. The world had been celebrating ever since the flash of green and gold light had cleared and Harry had been the one left standing. Harry had been exhausted, but he had smiled beatifically and crushed his two best friends into a massive hug, his tears of joy recorded by Colin Creevey, who had never lost the habit of carrying a camera everywhere, even through the years when his wand had come more readily to hand, his instincts honed by constant vigilance. The photograph had been on the front page of every wizarding newspaper around the world, and Colin had presented a framed copy of it to Ginny while she sat quietly, watching Harry laugh and celebrate with his friends and companions from the long war years. After a few hours she had slipped out, finding her way to the small chapel where she had attended too many funerals. There she had sank to her knees and prayed, thanking any deity that might be listening for bringing her loved ones through safely.   
  
She had fallen asleep there, lying across the altar like some pagan sacrifice, or a desperate pilgrim seeking sanctuary. What had changed her, she wasn't sure, but she knew when her eyes fluttered open that she had been changed.   
  
She hadn't been able to ignore the little voice that pointed out that Harry only ever sought her out at night, when he would fumble and grope his way to a release with his eyes tightly closed the whole time. He never called out another's name, but he never called out hers. Oh, it wasn't that he shunned her company. She was always welcome to join the circle of people surrounding him, but she wasn't part of it, not really. She usually excused herself, Harry remembering her long enough to plant a quick kiss on her cheek before returning to the almost giddy conversation and playing that all of the warriors who had fought at his side were indulging in. After the first few days, she had stopped showing up in the first place and found that she was missed almost as little as she missed being there; not at all.   
  
He didn't need her any more, and when she was honest with herself, she knew she didn't want him to. She'd been content for so long to be taken for granted, her love given freely and without conditions, that it almost seemed sacrilege to think that perhaps, just perhaps, she might free herself from the vows she had made to herself at age ten. She still loved Harry Potter; she always would, and she knew that to the marrow of her bones. She might be carrying his child. And yet...  
  
She shifted, pulling her hair out from where it was pinned by his arm, rearranging herself to a position where she could be comfortable, and have a chance of sleeping. His eyes fluttered open and he watched her with a small frown drawing his eyebrows together. "What's wrong, Gin?"  
  
She always assured him it was nothing, when he asked. "Harry... Are you happy?"  
  
He gave her a half smile as his arms tightened around her and pulled her back into the position he always held her in while he slept. "Voldemort's defeated, of course I'm happy. Ron and Hermione are okay, and Sirius, and your family. It's over." He nuzzled her neck before yawning and saying, "Go back to sleep, Gin, and don't worry about silly things."  
  
She could feel him sinking back into sleep, his breathing evening out as it curled against her neck. She stared at the canopy again, waiting until she knew that he was deeply enough asleep that he wouldn't notice her slipping away. She ran a hand over his brow, pushing the hair away from his eyes before dropping a light kiss on his forehead. She wished the best for him, she always had, but continuing this masquerade of love was not best for him any more than it was for her.   
  
Once she was sure he was asleep, she moved carefully out of the bed and stepped into the clothes she had taken off when she had crawled into bed the evening before. Moving swiftly, she gathered what she would need to take with her. She considered briefly going to the boy who had loved her, to see if he could love her still. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to imagine for a moment his arms around her, being able to hold him and /know/ he was safe, not just read in the newspaper that he had recovered from the injuries inflicted on him by the side he had refused to join. She wanted to, desperately, wanted to find the chance she had passed up and seize it with both hands. Ultimately, though, she couldn't, couldn't run from one man to another without taking the time to know that she was running to him, and not simply running away.  
  
She had documents prepared, emergency travel funds and means that she had planned secretly during the war, when it had seemed a very real possibility that she might have to go into hiding. There was one set, which Harry and the others knew about, and then there was the set that she had made, to prove to herself that she could, to practice on so that if she needed to, she could make a new identity for the grey eyed boy who still lived in a corner of her heart. It hadn't been necessary, and she had nursed a secret pride in how he had made it through without having to depend on anyone. He had not fought bravely for the forces of Light, but he had persevered and stood against the Dark. It seemed appropriate, somehow, that the work she had done on his behalf, in secret, would instead go to allow her to follow his example and stand firmly on her own two feet.  
  
When she was ready to go, she gave one last look to where he lay, the look of tranquility on his face making him seem a dark haired angel. She propped the note she had written where he would be sure to find it when he awoke and then once again slipped quietly out of his presence.  
  
It was well after dawn when Harry woke up and fumbled for his glasses. Something seemed wrong, and he thought at first that it might be that Ginny hadn't woken him up earlier to prepare for the press conference. He lay back, waiting for her to come in with breakfast, as she always did when she woke up before he did. After a few minutes he opened his eyes to see a piece of parchment resting against the water glass she always kept on the nightstand.  
  
"Dear Harry -   
  
I've always been in love with you, and I guess you always really knew. You took my love for granted, and I was content... But it's over. Voldemort is gone, and all the people you consider family are safe and well. I wish you well, and I hope that you get all the awards and medals and adulations that you deserve, and those are many. I just can't stay, can't pretend that what's between us is satisfactory. 'In the gloaming, oh my darling, think not bitterly of me; It was best to leave you thus, dear, best for you and best for me.' Don't try to find me, I'll be in touch eventually.  
  
Goodbye,  
  
Ginny"  
  
Author's Note: Waaaaaaaah, don't hurt me! I got mugged by an angst bunny and had to write it down to exorcise it. I don't know whether or not there'll be more, since I'm not sure this is the sort of thing anyone wants to read. Except for the spifferific Monki (and her new sidekick, the ever lovely Elf), and Acaciah and Anglynni, my new pals. (Hey, Ang, how's "Falling" coming along?) Anyway. If you read this, let me know whether to try to continue it is worthwhile. 


	2. Lost

Ginny was lost.  
  
The thought, which should probably have been distressing, simply brought a smile to her face. She'd never been directly involved with the war effort, or spying, or anything that might place the precious girl child of the Weasleys at the slightest risk for harm. If there had been a way to protect her from paper cuts, Harry and her family would have insisted on implementing it. She had allowed it, because it seemed to make the people she loved feel better, but towards the end of the war she had started to wonder if she would ever be allowed to take a bath without someone knocking on the door to make sure she hadn't drowned herself in the tub.  
  
She had paid attention, though, and listened and watched until she knew every job that was done by the people around her. She'd read endless books, cookbooks which covered everything from dressing the game to putting on a dinner party for twenty, survival guides which explained how to get down from Mount Everest with Swiss army knife and some duct tape, textbooks and atlases and novels. She hadn't noted at the time that she seemed to concentrate on muggle books, or that all the information she was digesting might be useful; she had just thought that she was entertaining herself through the long, dull hours of waiting.  
  
It had been two weeks since she left, left her family, her home, and Harry. The first week had been spent laying down a false trail, using the documents that they knew about and making sure that her distinctively long red hair was spotted at various intervals. Then she had bundled her hair into a scarf, donned an ancient mackintosh and emerged from the restroom at Madame Tussaud's with a crowd of elderly American tourists. A small glamour allowed her to make her face look older, and she stayed with the tourists until the next stop of their package tour. Hearing their stories of home, she'd come to an impulsive decision. What better place to get lost in than America?  
  
She had long since made arrangements through Gringotts to have her money available to her anywhere. The key to her vault was a plastic card which worked in the muggle world as well as the wizarding one, automatically transferring funds from her vault to whomever she was paying. It was the one weak spot in her escape plan, but she was fairly sure that the goblins wouldn't risk thousands of years of reputation by divulging any information about her, even to the great hero Harry Potter. She would deal with him eventually, but right now she needed time and space.  
  
So here she was, somewhere in America, holding a small bag of clothes and wondering what to do next. She didn't dare use magic, because her wand had been duly registered with the proper authorities and thus could be tracked. She couldn't find work until she'd gotten a chance to see what kind of paperwork would be needed, even if she was confident her forging abilities would be more than equal to the task. Ginny reached up to finger the pendant around her neck, an absent gesture that always seemed to help her think more clearly.  
  
Her eye lit on a newspaper that had been discarded on a park bench and she shrugged before sitting down to read it. She'd walked a fair distance from the bus station, just meandering with her thoughts, and her feet were grateful for the rest. The top of the newspaper told her she was in Savannah, which she remembered as being to the south and east. It explained the oppressive humidity, at least. Still, the park squares she had walked through were pretty, and there was something soothing about the bizarre way that people spoke.  
  
She had just pulled the hair off of her neck for what felt like the millionth time when her eye lit on an advertisement for something called "Locks of Love". It sounded like a lovely thing, giving hair to sick muggle children, and perhaps it was time for a change. Now to find her way around.  
  
"You all right there, ma'am?" Ginny turned to see a young black girl with her hair in braids and a friendly expression. "You look a bit lost."  
  
Ginny smiled thankfully. "I'm afraid I am. I don't know where anything is."  
  
"Girl Scout Leela Granger, at your service." The girl grinned impishly, and Ginny found herself smiling back. "I was just visiting the Lowe house, but I can do that any time."  
  
"I have a good friend named Granger." Ginny thought wistfully about Hermione, but then shook herself out of it. "And now it seems like I have two, doesn't it? Do you think you could help me find this place?"  
  
Leela's face twisted a bit into a grimace, but only momentarily. "Yeah, my mama's there. She'll put me to work."  
  
"Maybe you could leave me outside the door? My mother always used to put me to work, too." Ginny felt a pang as she thought about her mother, the one person who would be most hurt by the lack of a fairy tale wedding at the end of the saga of Ginny Weasley and Harry Potter. She knew that Molly would be constantly checking the clock at the Burrow, only to see Ginny's arm permanently over 'travelling'. She sighed before turning back to Leela, who was chattering about her school, the Girl Scouts (Ginny wasn't sure what they were, but they were apparently really important), her mother, her brothers and sisters, and a thousand other things. She reminded Ginny of herself, before the Chamber, before Hogwarts... Before Harry Potter.  
  
They reached a place with a large sign that said "House of Beauty" and had a mural of stunningly beautiful black women painted on the side. One of them looked so much like Fred's wife Angelina that Ginny felt a tremendous pang of homesickness. She reached up to touch the painted face and wondered yet again whether she was doing the right thing. She looked down into Leela's inquisitive face and said, "She looks like my sister-in-law. I miss her a lot."  
  
Leela grinned. "That's one of my cousins posed for that. She plays sports and when she visits, she lets me play, too. Anyway, come on."  
  
Ginny let herself be dragged into the shop, which smelled like lye and perfume and the nasty stuff that Lavender used to use on her nails. There were mirrors everywhere, and chairs that moved up and down. There were women bustling everywhere, and there was music playing that sounded distinctly American. One of the women was singing along soulfully, and Ginny had never felt more awkward and out of place in her life. No one she knew would ever be brave enough to sing along to music in public.  
  
"What's the matter, honey, you don't like my singing?" The woman who had been singing stopped to look at Ginny, her tone sounding more like teasing than hostility.  
  
"Oh, no, it was lovely." Before Ginny's brain could stop her, her mouth said, "I just wish that I could be so spontaneous, it seems like a nicer way to be."  
  
There was a moment of absolute quiet while Ginny fidgeted and felt like every eye in the place was staring at her. Finally, the woman laughed and said, "Well, honey, don't feel bad, you can learn." There was a burst of laughter and Ginny grinned, foolishly pleased by the feeling of being accepted. "Now what can I do for you, sweetie?"  
  
"She wants to give her hair to those poor kids, mama." Leela's voice piped up from behind a screen, where she pulled out a broom and dustpan. "She was lost, but I helped her."  
  
Ginny looked from Leela to her mother. "Yes, she was a credit to the scout girls and your family." There were hoots of laughter and Ginny frowned. "Girl Guides? Youth scouts?"  
  
"Girl Scouts!" Leela frowned at Ginny before flouncing through the room with the broom and dustpan, much to the amusement of the older ladies.  
  
"All right now, back to work girls. Beauty doesn't just happen." Leela's mother cast a look around and then gestured for Ginny to follow her. "Come on this way, baby, and let's see what we've got to work with. My name's Nicolette, but most people call me Neeko."  
  
They had stepped into a small alcove which was mostly out of sight of the rest of the shop, where there was a single chair backing onto a large sink. Ginny timidly reached up and took off the scarf she'd been wearing constantly since she'd first slipped out of sight, then started pulling out the pins that held up her braid. She stopped when Neeko sucked in her breath sharply and said, "Ginny Weasley."  
  
Arranging her face into a puzzled frown, Ginny said, "Who?"  
  
Neeko shook her head, then rummaged in a pile of newspapers behind her. Ginny got two nasty shocks in a row as she first noticed that the publication in question was the Daily Prophet, and the other was that her picture was plastered on the front page. She looked into Neeko's eyes and knew that there was no prevarication possible. With a sigh, Ginny said, "All right, that's me. But I wasn't kidnapped, and there's no foul play involved."  
  
"I can see that." Neeko gestured towards the chair and Ginny sat down, not sure what else she could say. Neeko's hands were gentle as she lowered Ginny's head towards the sink and worked shampoo through the mass of hair. "Did you see the picture outside? Recognize anyone?"  
  
"You know Angelina?" Ginny almost sat up from the surprise, but Neeko's grip on her hair prevented her from going far.  
  
Neeko grunted as she sprayed warm water over Ginny's hair, then started pulling a comb through it, gently. "My sister met a Brit while she was stationed overseas, and she stayed with him after she got out of the Army. Angie's my niece." Ginny took this in while a part of her was already planning where and how she would run. As if she could read minds, Neeko continued, "Now, if you didn't get kidnapped, you must've run. Can't have you running some more."  
  
Ginny's glare was less than impressive from her prone position. "I explained why I had to leave, and I see no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to make my own decision simply because I happen to be the youngest in my family and a girl."  
  
"Angie told me about you, you know. She said you helped her a lot when she married your brother." Neeko wrapped a towel around Ginny's head. "That should be dark enough now no one will notice the color until after it's cut."  
  
"You... You're going to help me hide?" Ginny looked at the older woman in shock.  
  
Neeko shrugged. "Like I said, Angie talked about you. She thought you were too good for that boy, anyway." Her mouth curled up in a mischievous smile that was exactly like Angelina's. "Besides, I always wanted to help out a spy on the run."  
  
Ginny smiled and followed Neeko out to one of the styling chairs. Perhaps being lost didn't mean having to be alone.  
  
It wasn't long before she settled into a routine. She was absorbed seamlessly into Neeko's extended family, all of whom knew her as Sarah Kingsley. Her hair was short now, hanging in black spikes all around her face in a style Neeko called "friendly punk". She thought of Draco often, fingering her pendant but resisting the urge to open it and find out whether he'd forgotten her after all. She'd managed to fake documents that allowed her to work, and she'd taken a job as a waitress to minimize how much she needed to dip into her savings. She even had her own apartment, even if it was just across a breezeway from Neeko's house. She worked and she slept and she learned to sing gospel, and she was content.  
  
Until the day that Neeko looked at her and said, "You been to a doctor yet about that baby?"  
  
(I /should/ be finishing my other fics. Instead bits and bobs of this one keep knocking on my brain and saying 'Hi! Write me and you might stand a chance of someday having your brain to yourself again. Argh.) 


	3. Accident

Ginny had stuttered, her mind completely blank as the weeks of denial came crashing down. Her hand flew up to clutch the pendant around her neck, only to drop it as if it had burned her fingers. Her eyes started to roll backwards and Neeko had leapt forward to catch her, steering her into a chair and pushing her face down towards her knees. 

"Breathe, baby. This ain't no time for swoonin'." Neeko's firm voice and pats on Ginny's back helped her world swim back into focus.

"What am I going to do?" she wailed. "I don't want to marry him, I don't!"

This time Neeko's hand landing on Ginny's back was more like a smack. "So who says you have to?"

The very concept struck Ginny as outlandish, and she stopped panicking long enough to stare. Neeko stopped her assault on Ginny's back to put her hands on her hips and look at Ginny in exasperation. "Well, are you a grownup or ain't you? Jesus, child, sometimes you make things too complicated."

Ginny managed a smile through the tears that had been trickling down her face. Trust Neeko to lecture her on being an adult and call her a child, all in the same breath. "He'll want to marry me, you know. And my mother won't understand at all if I don't – she only managed to make herself accept that I was having sex by telling herself we were only anticipating the wedding."

Neeko snorted. "This the same woman who spent a week lecturing my little Angie to tears about how to be a good wife to her baby boy?"

"That's her. My mum, single-handedly defending the respectability of the Weasleys since 1965." Ginny giggled and all of a sudden the world didn't seem that bad. Her hand crept up to cover her abdomen, the outward curve barely perceptible. "I'm keeping the baby."

She hadn't realized she had made the decision until she heard herself saying it, but it felt right. Whatever was between her and Harry, there had been friendship, and affection. She might be rejecting some of her upbringing by having a baby out of wedlock, but she would not destroy a child created in love. And she wanted the child, she realized. It would be difficult, and it would change everything, but she wanted to hold it in her arms, to watch her son or daughter grow and thrive and learn to cook and play pranks and go to school. A baby, part of her and part of Harry, but entirely its own person. 

Neeko watched the expressions chase each other across Ginny's face and nodded with approval. When the whirlwind of emotions seemed to have settled down, she said, "First thing you need's a doctor to make sure you and the baby're okay. I know one that'll be good for you. He's a cooter doctor, but he does general medicine, too."

Ginny blinked, then blushed as she figured out what 'cooter' meant. "I don't know… I've never been to a muggle doctor before."

"Don't worry about it, I'll take care of it." Neeko waved a hand dismissively. "You just think some more on what you're going to do about the folks at home… Including the boy who gave you that necklace."

"I… He's not the father, he's not Harry." Ginny's eyes were distant as she thought of Draco, remembering how his rare smiles always seemed to come out lopsided, how he would listen, actually listen when she talked, and how he would hear the words she didn't say. He had loved her, the real her, and she had pushed him away.

"That's as might be, but you don't clutch nothing from Harry like it's your last hope of salvation." Neeko moved across her kitchen to pour herself a fresh cup of coffee before coming back to join Ginny at the kitchen table. "Seems to me like you got something there that needs to be worked out, one way or another."

Ginny shook her head, not so much in rejection of the words as much as trying to reject the hope that tried to creep up on her. Firmly, attempting to convince herself, she said, "What kind of woman begs the man she loves for a second chance while she's carrying another man's baby? And it's not like he's been a monk - who knows if he even remembers me?"

"Child, if the man loves you, he'll want to hear from you, if nothing else but to know you're not kidnapped." Neeko took a sip of coffee, then lowered the mug to look at Ginny piercingly. "And if he don't, well, honey, you got to move on. Pining away is for sissies and Englishmen."

"Ah, giving Draco an out in the unlikely event he's actually done any pining. Very clever, I commend you." Ginny raised her mug in salute and then attempted to sip. The cup, however, was snatched from her hand, replaced shortly with a glass of milk.

"Better for the baby. And with a name like that, he might qualify for both categories," Neeko snickered.

Ginny walked over to the pile of Daily Prophets that Neeko was holding on to for wizard recycling. She'd said that she subscribed to it to feel closer to her sister, but Ginny had been the one lately to read it from cover to cover. She felt a pang of guilt every time she saw her name mentioned, which was fairly often, as Harry talked about her in every interview.

Soon. She would talk to Harry and deal with him soon.

In the meantime, she flipped to the society pages and turned the paper around to show Neeko. "That's Draco."

Neeko sucked in her breath sharply. "Ooooh, Lordy but that's a handsome devil. And he knows it, too."

The picture of Draco winked cheekily at Neeko before turning back to dancing with the latest sensation on the wizard wireless, a gothic brunette with a memorable bosom. Ginny smiled and traced her finger around the circumference of the picture. 

"Baby, it about breaks my heart to see how sad a smile that is." Neeko shook her head, the beads in her hair clacking. "Call him! What's the worst that could happen?"

"The absolute worst? That he still loves me and his heart breaks because he can't accept Harry's child." Ginny shook her head and folded the newspaper back up, swiftly and precisely. "No, I hurt him once, I'm not going to do it again."

The subject was closed and Neeko did not open it again, although Ginny could feel those bottomless coffee-bean eyes on her every time she reached for the locket she couldn't bring herself to put away.

Soon enough, Ginny found herself sitting on a hard leather chair, clutching her handbag in front of her as a friendly looking man with a short beard covering his double chin asked her questions. She answered in monosyllables, her nerves fraught as she remembered with horror some of the stories about muggle medicine in her Muggle Studies textbook at Hogwarts. Finally he said something that made her blink. "Pardon me, could you repeat that?"

"Of course, my dear. I had simply assured you that we do use the best potions when it is appropriate." He smiled beatifically and leaned back, his arms crossed in front of his paunch. "Of course, sometimes normo medicine is better as, of course, all magical healing requires a cost be paid."

"Normo?" Ginny felt dazed. Was this chubby little man in a white coat a wizard?

"It's what we call muggles, honey." Neeko patted Ginny's hand comfortingly. "Don't you worry, Doctor Jones is one of the best doctors in the South, both magically and not."

Ginny sagged with relief. Knowing magic was available for health care made a big difference. Her grip on her handbag relaxed, which reminded her of another detail. Opening the small clutch, she withdrew her Gringotts card, and offered it to the doctor. "I know that here you don't have the national health, so I wanted to assure you of payment."

Doctor Jones took the card affably, but his smile melted away to leave a hard, piercing stare as soon as he read the name on it. "Care to explain why you're giving me a card that belongs to a kidnap victim, Miss Kingsley? The aurors-"

The doctor's harsh words were cut off by a wave of Neeko's hand. "She's no more kidnapped than I am, and if your mama knew you was talking to a pregnant lady like that, she'd snatch you bald."

Ginny stared at her feet for a moment, then brought her eyes up to the doctor's. "I left a note, and I sent a letter to my mother when I first saw the kidnap story, but… They'd rather believe in foul play than accept that I needed to be on my own for a little while."

Doctor Jones grunted. "I can't pretend to fully understand your circumstances, but I remember a time I lived in Chicago just because I needed to be away from my mama."

Neeko's teeth gleamed whitely as she laughed. "The boy had me sending him Vidalia onions and pralines by Express Owl until he finally got over his hissy fit and came home."

"And chili dogs from the Varsity in Atlanta. It was when she cut off my chili dog supply that I had to come back to Georgia for good." Doctor Jones laughed and the tension that had arisen was completely dispersed.

After they discussed what kind of care she would need, what could be expected, and he had prescribed some vitamins, Doctor Blank ran some basic tests with his wand over her clothes and declared her mostly healthy. "I'd like you to stay off your feet a bit more, and we'll run some normo tests next week. It's probably nothing, since you're otherwise healthy, but it's worth keeping an eye on."

Ginny nodded and rose to leave when he handed her some papers his secretary had laid on his desk earlier. "These are consent forms and authorizations, for both your normo and magic names. Read carefully, because it sets out who makes the decisions if you can't."

Ginny sat back down and filled them out quickly, reading as she went. "I want Neeko in charge. She can handle everything."

"She most surely can, and she's been that way ever since we were itty bitty kids and she bossed all us neighbor kids around." Ginny's eyes cut from the doctor to her friend as they laughed, and she wondered. Deciding to tease Neeko about it later, she thanked the doctor again and they made their goodbyes.

It was less than two days before there was cause to be grateful for Ginny's decisiveness in signing those papers. She and Leela had been getting some groceries, and as they walked home, Leela was teaching Ginny a Girl Scout song about silver and gold friends. There was a squealing of brakes and Ginny looked up to see a car swerve to avoid a bicyclist, only to jump the curb and come straight towards them.

With a strength born of desperation, Ginny lifted the young girl and threw her out of the car's path. She just had time to hope the landing against a tree hadn't hurt Leela too badly before the car struck and everything went black.

(Author's Note: It's the fic that wouldn't die. I don't normally write a whole lot of angst - you'll have to tell me how I'm doing, so I know whether to post some of the other five chapters I wrote.)


	4. Called

He had lost hope that he would ever feel it, and so it took a moment before he realized what it was. She was calling him.  
  
Impatiently, he shook off the hand that was wrapped around his arm, breaking one of the long scarlet fingernails of the woman with the predatory smile and the prominently displayed bosom. Ignoring her protests and the stares of the glittering, soulless horde gathered to drink and mate and tear each other to shreds, he strode out. He would need his wand. Anything else he could get after he knew what trouble she was in.  
  
Because she had to be in trouble. After all these years, she wouldn't call for Draco Malfoy unless the situation was dire. He knew himself a fool for rushing to her, but he knew that nothing would stop him from reaching her. Break both of his legs and he would crawl to her. Within seconds of first feeling the pull from the enchantment he'd placed on the locket, he had apparated home and opened the box that held the portkey he had prepared years ago to take him to wherever the locket was.  
  
He was disoriented when he felt the pull of travel stop. The air smelled of disinfectant and there was an incessant beeping and whirring, accompanied by soft murmurs of people talking. There seemed to be a number of beds and he turned, only to feel like he'd been punched in the gut. She hadn't called him, after all. The locket was in the hands of a dignified, mournful black woman. He started to say something when the figure on the bed caught his attention.  
  
"Ginny." She'd cut her hair, and it was black now. It was the only color against the whiteness of her skin and the sheets that swathed her. There was a clear mask over the lower half of her face, and all sorts of wires and tubes coming from her frail body. He didn't move consciously, but he was soon at her bedside, his hand hovering above hers as he wondered if touching her would hurt her.  
  
"You can touch her, baby. Just be careful with her IV." The woman's voice was strange, hoarse but also slow and foreign.  
  
Draco glared at the woman even as he picked up Ginny's hand with all the tenderness in the world. "Who are you, and what's wrong with her?"  
  
"My name's Neeko, and she was in an accident." Her voice caught slightly, the hint of a sob making a hitch in her talking, but before she could continue, two men approached.  
  
"What the hell are you doing here?" The normally even tempered Harry Potter looked murderous as he stalked towards Draco. Without letting go of Ginny's hand, Draco turned to face him, wand in hand.  
  
What might have happened next was anyone's guess, as Neeko's voice cracked like a whip and stopped both men in their tracks. "If you boys don't shut up, I'll have both your asses kicked out."  
  
The doctor, who had been nonplussed at what seemed like the possibility of bloodshed in his ward, cleared his throat and looked appreciatively at Neeko. "Perhaps I might be allowed to check on my patient, gentlemen?"  
  
"Of course." Draco moved aside, but started peppering the doctor with questions. "Will she be all right? What's the matter? Is there anything I can do? I'll pay all costs, for any specialists, anything that will help her."  
  
The doctor smiled at him, kindly but grave. "She should pull through, but right now the question is whether or not she'll lose the baby."  
  
"Baby?" Harry sat down abruptly, his face pale. "She's pregnant?"  
  
Neeko frowned slightly, and the doctor cleared his throat again before saying, "Perhaps if I might have a minute alone with my patient, Miz Granger can tell you everything."  
  
Harry glared. "I'm her fiance, I should be told--"  
  
The doctor's smile disappeared and he stared Harry down. "Miz Granger is the one listed as next of kin on the official papers Miz Kingsley has on record."  
  
"Kingsley? That's Ginny Weasley! She's been missing for months!" Harry was furious, but the doctor wasn't backing down.  
  
"I know who you are, Mister Potter, and I know who she is. Miz Granger has paperwork written and signed by my patient that say she is the one who is in charge of all decisions about my patient, and those are the wishes that I will respect." In a swift move, the doctor pulled a wand out from the pocket of his lab coat. "Now you can leave peacefully or you can leave the hard way, but you will leave."  
  
Harry shot one last glare at Draco, who had silently returned to holding Ginny's hand, and stormed out of the room. The doctor glanced at Draco, who nodded and put down Ginny's hand before following after Harry.  
  
As soon as the door had shut behind him, Draco started to wonder if perhaps he would end up in a bed beside Ginny. The glares of a horde of Weasleys hit him with an almost physical force, and his face automatically settled into cool, impassive lines. With the manners drilled into him since childhood, he turned to Ginny's mother. "Mrs. Weasley. I wish we could have met under better circumstances."  
  
She stared at him blankly, manners warring with the worry and stress she had lived with ever since Ginny had first gone missing. Finally she croaked out, "Mister Malfoy."  
  
"How dare you, you bastard! You're probably the one who kidnapped her in the first place, and now you have the nerve--" Ron's face was dark red and his fists were dead white from how hard they were clenched.  
  
"Funny thing about her kidnapping... My sources managed to follow her trail into London, and there was no sign of anyone coercing her in any way." Draco's voice was steady, his lips set in the sneer that Ron and Harry were all too familiar with. "Odd sort of kidnapping, that."  
  
Harry's cheeks were dusted with color and he would have said something if Neeko hadn't emerged from the ward at that point. "Miz Weasley? I'm Neeko."  
  
Molly nodded, her mind reeling even as she looked up hopefully. "How is she?"  
  
"She's still unconscious. They think she might need an operation if there's to be a chance of saving the baby." Neeko took a deep breath before continuing. "There's a couple of things that y'all need to know, so I'd appreciate if I could get it all said at once before your boys go ballistic."  
  
"Of course." Molly swept a glance around at her family and they obeyed her unspoken command, sitting quietly and attentively. The red haired matriarch then turned her full attention to the regal looking black woman. "Please, tell me everything you know."  
  
Neeko took a seat on one of the hard plastic chairs and began. "I called you because I'm a mama and it wouldn't be right for a mama not to know when her baby's in the hospital. Otherwise, I never would've let y'all know where she was, since she didn't want you to know."  
  
Percy sputtered at this, but subsided at a look from his mother, who said quietly, "Did she tell you that?"  
  
"Yeah. She would've run harder once she found out I was sorta family, but we made a deal. She stuck around and I didn't rat her out." Neeko glanced briefly at Fred, who was holding tightly to Angelina's hand, but swiftly turned her attention back to Molly. "I'm not sorry. She needed to sort things out and she couldn't do that with all y'all breathing down her neck."  
  
Ignoring the various disapproving males, Neeko concentrated on Molly's steady stare. "She's been living and working here almost since she left England. Once she's better, she's welcome to stay, if she needs to."  
  
Molly nodded, slowly. The nightmare of Ginny being missing, and then hurt, had made her reconsider a lot of what was really important. "Thank you for taking care of my daughter."  
  
"I didn't take care of her, she took care of herself." Neeko's tone was disapproving. "That y'all didn't think she could is one of the reasons she ended up on my porch like something the cat dragged in."  
  
Before any of the Weasleys could speak, Neeko continued. "She'd just decided she was going to keep the baby, and I know she was thinking about you folks, but then she had the accident."  
  
Molly Weasley took a deep breath. Harry had told them what the doctor had said about the legal paperwork, and that in itself said a lot about both Ginny's state of mind and this woman's character. "When can we see her?"  
  
"The doctor will let us know. Right now we just need to pray and hope the good Lord will see us all through this." 


	5. Floating

Ginny was floating, her short hair bobbing around her face as she drifted calmly. The water was warm and soothing as it lapped against her skin, and she felt like she could stay this way forever. Dimly, she could hear noises like on that television show about the doctors, but she pushed that aside and concentrated on the lovely feeling of floating.  
  
"Ginny, dear, please come back to us. We love you so much, and I miss our little chats. Everyone's been so worried about you, we didn't know what to think. My poor baby, come back." Her mum. Ginny was torn between a rush of love and a distinct impatience. There was no doubt her mother did indeed love her, but their little chats had mostly consisted of Molly giving advice on how to be a good wife and hinting delicately that Ginny should pressure Harry to get married immediately. Molly adored Harry, but it grated on her nerves that her daughter was sleeping with a man outside the sanctity of marriage. Shutting her mother's chatter out of her mind, Ginny returned to the bliss of oblivion.  
  
Next came her father's voice. He sounded tired, and she wished she could sit on his lap and lay her head on his shoulder like she did when she was little. "Ginny... I know you haven't been happy for some time, but please, forgive me for not helping you. Come back and we can fix anything, just so long as I can see my little girl smile again." She tried to look at him and smile, but the water was too heavy and she couldn't lift her head up.  
  
Then came her brothers, one after the other, each murmuring about their love and making promises for when she came back. A visit to Egypt, a ride on a dragon, a post in the Ministry, a nice long visit with Angelina, a job at the Wheezes if she wanted one, anything she wanted if only she'd come back, come back, don't leave us. Ginny felt a rush of love for her brothers, but also a strange sort of bitterness. It shouldn't take something life threatening (life threatening? But she was just floating.) to make them see her. She wanted to laugh when Ron's concern slipped into scolding her, but then he was gone.  
  
She heard someone talking above her, something about vital signs and surgery and possible miscarriage, and she felt sorry for whoever they were talking about. She felt her hand being lifted and then came the voice as familiar to her as her own. "Ginny, you have to come back, I need you. We're going to have a baby, Ginny, and we can be happy again."  
  
She winced at the desperation in Harry's voice and wished he would put her hand down, because it hurt. Happy again? When had she been happy in the whole time she had been with Harry? Living your life for the benefit of another person doesn't leave a lot of room for such trivialities as your own happiness.  
  
"Please, Ginny, I'll do anything for you. We'll get married, and I'll build us a nice little house not too far from the Burrow, and I'll bring you flowers and chocolates and adore you even when you're big as a house." Harry's voice was ragged with pain and Ginny winced at causing it. "I don't know why you left. You said I took you for granted, but I... I don't know, maybe I did, but I can change, Ginny, I can, you just need to tell me how. You and me and the baby, Gin, it's part of us. I want us to be together, I want to be what you need me to be. Please, please come back. I need you, both of you."  
  
No, Harry, you don't need me, not any more. You deserve the chance to do and be who you want to be, not who other people need. And I'm tired, Harry. I'm so tired...  
  
"Code blue, code blue, we're losing her! Get the OR clear, now!" 


	6. Grief

Draco sat at Ginny's bedside, staring at her pale, unmoving face. There was noise and commotion all around, but all he could hear was the deathly quiet that seemed to surround her, a cocoon of absolute stillness. 

"I hated you, you know." He wasn't sure where the words were coming from, but they wouldn't stop. "I hated you more than anyone or anything, because I loved you so much and I couldn't make myself stop."

He sat down next to her bed and took a drink of the glass of ice water by her bed. "Crazy Americans. They know you don't need it, but they still leave water out for you." He sighed and shook his head.

"I must be exhausted to blather like this. All these bloody years of waiting for you to stop being so utterly moronic and I come back to this… It's just like a bloody Weasley to be so inconsiderate." He laughed then, a harsh sound that was almost a sob.

His hand traced gently over her face, the freckles she had hated seeming garish against the dead whiteness of her skin. "I fucked other women, you know. Don't think I didn't. Some brainless tarts, some geniuses to rival your old pal Granger, blondes and brunettes

and redheads, all of them beautiful and rich and totally infatuated with me."

"But damn it, none of them were you, with your freckles and your cheekiness and the way you always made me feel like I'd earned your smiles, like you thought I was something besides a good looking bloke with an old family name and pots of money." He seized her hand then, grasping it in both of his as if by force of will he could transfer warmth to her cold fingers.

Draco laughed again, but this time the misery had given way to a cold mockery. "But it wasn't enough, was it? No, Precious Potter saves the world and gets the girl, because heroes need brave, beautiful girls, and the world needs heroes, not the likes of Draco

Malfoy."

"Do you have any idea how frightened I was when I read you had been kidnapped?" His tone changed abruptly to become accusatory as his grip on her unfeeling hand grew tighter. "I was going mad, couldn't eat or sleep for worrying, and it turns out you'd just gone walkabout, swanning around the damn colonies like some kind of bloody dilettante holiday-maker."

His tone was soft, a lost boy's lament, as he said, "If you wanted to run, why couldn't you have run to me?"

He closed his eyes, wishing that they wouldn't burn so with grief and exhaustion, allowing himself to sink into the strange bubble of silence that seemed to hang over her still form. 

"Deserve better… Stupid pregnant bint." Her voice was weak, roughened by the tubes and potions that had been forced down her throat to keep her alive.

His hand tightened around hers to the point of pain. "You damned little fool. Didn't you know I'd have taken you however I could get you?"

Ginny smiled fuzzily, her mind still not fully sharp. "It's really you."

He snorted, but couldn't stop himself from tracing her cheek with one trembling finger. "Who would I be, the tooth fairy?"

Her eyes closed and she leaned into his touch. "Please stay. Need you…" She drifted off to sleep again, still smiling, and Draco eased his grip but kept hold of her hand.

"You're not getting rid of my so easily this time," he whispered, settling further into the chair beside her bed to continue his vigil.

"She doesn't, you know." The tranquility he had just found was broken by the voice he least wanted to hear. "She has her family and she has me. What would she need you for?"

"Sod off, Potter." Draco didn't even bother to lift his faze from Ginny's still face.

Harry's face twisted with anger as he looked at the one man he'd ever thought he hated, holding tenderly the hand of the one woman he'd ever thought he loved. "You wouldn't even be here if she hadn't signed those idiotic papers."

"But she did, and here I am." Draco shrugged, still not looking at the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Damn it, that was MY baby she lost, Malfoy. All these years it's been MY bed she's in."

Harry's movement towards the bed halted abruptly as Draco finally lifted his head and stared at Harry with all the hatred and bitterness that had accumulated from years past. "I know, Potter. I know everything about her, from her favorite color to the crook of her

pinky toe."

Harry would have spoken, but Draco cut him off. "She thought you needed her, and that the world needed you, so she turned her back on me and I was fool enough to let her. I won't be the same kind of fool twice. This time, I'll fight for her."

"That's enough." Neeko's voice crackled with authority as she stared down the two bristling males. "You two want to fight like dogs over a bone, you go outside. Baby girl needs rest, and you two should know better than to bother her."

Draco nodded sharply and turned his back on Harry. "I told her I wouldn't leave, and I won't."

(Have I mentioned the streak of sadism in my character? Hands up, everyone who thought I'd killed her...)


	7. Waking

It was days before Ginny was awake for more than random moments. The doctor said this was normal, and that what her body needed most was rest. Her family took shifts sitting with her and going to a nearby inn to rest, but the exasperated hospital staff set up a cot near Ginny's bed for Draco, who had made it quite clear that he would not leave. Since Ginny asked for him every time she woke up, this had both Neeko's and Doctor Jones's wholehearted approval.

The hospital administration was considerably less sanguine. Molly Weasley was knitting by Ginny's side when a man who reminded her uncomfortably of Percy at his most offensive came bustling into the room. His face reddened and he seemed to puff up with indignation as he looked around the cheery private room. Draco was nowhere in sight, having gone to procure "that swill they call tea" from the nurses' station, and Molly quailed at confronting this angry little man by herself.

"What is this?" Without waiting for an answer, he switched gears to say calmly, "I'm afraid, madam, that my staff has allowed their incompetence to place you in an awkward position, and for that I do apologize."

Molly nodded dumbly, intimidated by the rapid shift from anger to condescension. Her eyes went to her daughter, her precious baby who was still so frail and wan. She had to swallow hard against a lump in her throat as he went on.

"Unfortunately, Miss, ah, Kingsley does not seem to have insurance, and this hospital is not a non-profit, so we have to have certain policies in place to protect our shareholders." He smiled some more and radiated a kindliness that Molly completely distrusted. "But don't worry, our shared ward is still very nice, and I'm sure you'll be able to apply for our indigent program to--"

"That will be quite enough." Draco stood in the doorway, two plastic cups in his hands. Molly, who had flinched at the word 'indigent', looked up and for once felt grateful at seeing a Malfoy with overbearing sneer fully in evidence.

"And who are you?" The administrator blustered, trying to avoid the feeling that he had irrevocably lost the upper hand.

Draco strode in, ignoring the pompous twit long enough to place the tea on the small table beside Molly and stroke Ginny's hair. When he turned back, his eyes were sharp and implacable. "I'm the man who will have your job if you're not out of my sight in one minute. I still might if I find you've offended Mrs. Weasley."

"Now, see here--"

"Thirty seconds." Something about Draco conveyed that he was completely serious, and capable of carrying out his threats. Mumbling something about a meeting and discussing the matter later, the administrator scurried away.

Draco watched him go, then picked up one of the cups and settled into a chair that was much too small for his height. As he took the first sip and grimaced, Mrs. Weasley said timidly, "What will happen if he comes back?"

"I'll have him fired," Draco shrugged.

"But... Surely in America, the Malfoy name..." She trailed off, unable to think of a tactful way to continue.

He smiled, but it wasn't a completely pleasant expression. "I bought the hospital days ago. The Malfoy name might not be well known here, but money is a universal language."

"Oh." Mrs. Weasley's needles paused for a moment, and he continued drinking the awful tea. The silence stretched until Mrs. Weasley said, "Fire the bugger."

Draco choked and only narrowly avoided spraying tea over Ginny's sheets. Mrs. Weasley turned pink and said, "Oh, dear, do excuse my language."  


"Of course." Draco collected himself, then put the remaining tea down carefully. "Any particular reason to put on his walking papers?"

Mrs. Weasley blushed furiously. "Oh, my. I supposed it's not nice to cost the man his livelihood just because I thought he was condescending."

Draco grinned, and Molly thought he looked like an angel who knew all the best reasons for having fallen. "Sometimes, Mrs. Weasley, not being nice can feel very, very good." With that, he winked and walked out the door, presumably to shake up the administration of the hospital.

"You checked out his bum. I saw." Molly whipped her head around to look at her daughter, still somewhat alien with her short black hair, but with a distinctly familiar twinkle in her alert eyes.

"Genevieve Weasley, I'll have none of your sauce." The words were reflexive, and were no sooner out than Molly burst into tears and gathered her daughter into her arms.

"Geez, Mum, you don't have to cry, you've got permission to look at his bum all you like." Ginny grinned weakly as she hugged her mother and tried to arrange things so that she could breathe.

Molly laughed even as she sniffled into her daughter's strange hair and they held each other like that for a few minutes. Then Ginny said frantically, "Oh my God, Leela! Is she all right?"

"Yes, dear, she's just fine. One of her ribs cracked from when she fell against the tree, but you remember from when Fred and George were at home how easy those are to mend." Molly smiled a bit. "What is it with my children that they all throw themselves into danger?"

"Too much Gryffindor in the bloodline. Leads to hero complexes." Draco was back, and Molly's heart wobbled as she saw how Ginny looked at him. She'd never looked at Harry that way.

"Oh, and what does a slimy Slytherin do when confronted by a speeding car?" Ginny's voice was still hoarse, but livelier than it had been in ages.

"Disapparate now, obliviate later." Draco perched on the side of Ginny's bed and sneered at her. "What the hell did you do to your hair, anyway? It looks like it was gnawed off by rats."

"I sold it for prenatal v--" Ginny's face stilled as her hand went to her abdomen. "I lost the baby, didn't I?"

"Yes." Draco's face went stiff, but that was the only comment he offered. Her face crumpled and she struggled for a moment before starting to cry.

Draco was reaching for her when the door opened again. "Malfoy! What did you do to my sister?"

"Ron, out!" Both Weasley women snapped at the luckless Ron, who was too shocked to even swear. Draco wasn't in much better condition, gaping at Mrs. Weasley as if wondering who took over her body. Molly continued, "Wait outside, Ronald. I'll be there shortly."

The look she gave him was enough to send him on his unprotesting way, and then Mrs. Weasley turned to her daughter. "Ginny, dear, do you want me to fetch Harry?"

Ginny flinched. "Not yet, Mum, please. I'm not ready to... I'm just not ready."

Molly nodded slowly. "Very well, then. Do you want some time alone with Draco, then?" 

"I..." Ginny looked up at Draco, whose expression had completely closed off. He looked so cold, so remote... Had she been dreaming? But he was here. Maybe... Maybe he still cared, at least a little. "Yes, please, Mum. Can you keep the others away until I call for you?"

Mrs. Weasley took a deep breath and studied Draco Malfoy for several long seconds before she nodded her head, satisfied if not happy. "Just ring for the nurse when you're ready, dear."

After the door closed behind her, Draco moved to stand several feet away from the bed. Ginny looked at him and a corner of her mouth quirked up. "Please don't make me chase you. It'd take too long to hook all this rigamarole back onto me before someone came and caught me escaping."

"What do you want from me, Weasley?" Draco's arms were crossed over his chest and he looked tremendously forbidding, until she noticed the lines of weariness on his face and the crumpled state of his clothes. Gathering her courage, she looked up at him and took a deep breath before starting to speak.

(Author's Note: I have a confession to make. This is the last chapter I have typed up. I've got one more chapter written in a notebook, and then after that, it still has to be written. I've got vague ideas of where it will probably go, but this fic has been kicking my butt to get written its own way. I intended for her to keep the baby, but noooooooooo. ^^; This is what a humor writer gets for giving in to the angst fairy. Thank you all so very, very much for reviewing. I have a hard time with writing this sort of thing, because I can't tell at all whether it's any good or not. My sister only got through half of chapter one before she declared it sucked royally. ^^;;;; )


	8. Confrontations

They stared at each other for several endless moments before Ginny gave a half-smile and said wryly, "Well, at least this time there's no chance of walking in on you and Susan Bones. A cute nurse, maybe..."  
  
Draco scowled. "What on earth are you talking about?"  
  
"I shouldn't have brought it up, I'm sorry." She squirmed and tried to look dismissive. "It's not as if we were together or you owed me anything."  
  
"Ginny." His voice was implacable and she sighed.  
  
"I'd gone looking for you. The day after Harry and I first... Got together." She blushed and Draco looked stonily out of the window. "I was going to, I don't know, ask you to forgive me and run away with me to Mexico or something. But I came across you and Susan in, uh..."  
  
"The Charms classroom." His voice was distant and his face strangely blank.  
  
Ginny cleared her throat. "Well, yes. I told myself I should be grateful you were happy, and that it just showed that where I was needed was with Harry."  
  
There was silence for several long moments as Draco stared at her and Ginny tried to avoid looking at him. Finally, he said softly, "Do you mean to tell me that, if I hadn't gotten drunk and screwed a meaningless girl just because her hair was like yours, if I hadn't tried to pretend, just for a little while, that you were mine... We'd have been together? I wouldn't have spent years trying to drink you off my mind, dreading and hoping for the Daily Prophet, because it'd have a picture of you, but with Potter? Is that what you're saying?"  
  
Ginny had cringed back into her pillows as his tone grew harsh and clipped, and suddenly he took her hand and sat down, his voice changing to soothing honey as he said, "No, don't, I'm sorry... It's just--"  
  
Her hand rose up to his face, her fingers resting gently on his lips. "Let's not talk about the past right now."  
  
He clutched her hand and pressed it to his lips. "You're not getting rid of me again. I won't go, and won't let you go, either."  
  
"And what a Malfoy wants, he gets, right?" Ginny's smile was just shy of being a smirk, and his eyebrow went up in response.  
  
"Precisely. Being a Malfoy has many such benefits, which is why you should become one as soon as possible." She'd have thought he was completely relaxed about this casual sounding statement, if he hadn't still been keeping a death-grip on her hand.  
  
Ginny took a deep breath and looked at him intently. She'd heard his eyes described as icy, but she never felt cold when he looked at her, didn't think she could ever be cold again. She thought they looked more celestial, with hints of a clear blue amidst the cloudy grey. She could see the anxiety that he wasn't bothering to keep out of his eyes, because no one would have seen it but her, would have known him enough to see it for what it was. With great solemnity, she said, "Does that mean you'll finally stop calling me Weasel?"  
  
Even a lifetime of Malfoy training couldn't prevent the laugh that came from Draco's lips. He slid closer from his perch on the side of her bed and pulled her close, whispering against her temple, "I love you, Weasel."  
  
"I love you, too." Just as Ginny gave her reply, Molly heard someone coming around the corner and hastily pushed the extendable ear she'd been using into her purse before leaning back against the door, trying to look as if she'd been busy with her knitting the whole time.  
  
Neeko looked Molly over calculatingly. "Just saw Ron. Looks fit to burst, said you kicked him out."  
  
Molly made a non-committal noise and looked down at her knitting needles, which were working empty air instead of green wool. She flushed and avoided Neeko's eyes as she set about fixing it. The silence between the two women continued until Molly blurted out, "This is Ginny's favorite color, you know."  
  
"I always thought she loved green because of Harry's eyes," Molly continued as Neeko bobbed her head in acknowledgment. "It never occurred to me that she might like it because it reminded her of someone completely different."  
  
"She ever tell you about this boy?" Neeko waved a hand casually and a chair pulled itself down the hallway to be near Molly's.  
  
"Not a word." Molly sighed heavily and stared at her fingers. "Then again, if she had, I wouldn't have listened. I was too caught up in what I thought best, like the old fool I am."  
  
Neeko grunted. "You ain't that old."  
  
The matriarch of the Weasley clan drew herself up to a queenly posture and said haughtily, "If I want to indulge in maudlin self-pity and abuse, kindly don't interrupt."  
  
Both women were still laughing when the door to Ginny's room opened and Draco stepped out, his face blank. "She wants to see Potter," was all he said before moving rapidly down the hallway.  
  
"Oh, dear." Molly looked at his retreating back and wondered what to do.  
  
Neeko peeked into the room. "You want the Potter boy?" Apparently receiving an affirmation, she said, "All right, I'll go get him."  
  
A few minutes later, Ginny found herself trading stares with Harry, much as she and Draco had earlier. After a minute, he muttered something and waved a wand in her direction. She felt her scalp tingle and then there was hair brushing her shoulders, the same bright copper length it had been before she'd left him.  
  
"Why did you do that?" She glared, and he glared right back.  
  
He jammed his hands in his pockets, and looked defiant. "Because it's you. The other way didn't suit you, made it seem like you're ashamed to be a Weasley."  
  
She closed her eyes, trying to contain the temper that was very much a Weasley trait. "Harry, did you stop to think maybe I liked my hair like that?"  
  
"It looked horrible. I was trying to help." He started pacing restlessly as he continued. "You used to like it when I'd do things for you, tell me I was sweet. What changed? What made you decide that instead of loving me, you hated me enough to run away from me? And to Malfoy, of all people!"  
  
"Harry..." Ginny's voice was tired, and she shook her head. "Harry, I never liked it, never liked being treated like porcelain. I just tried to tell myself I did, to pretend--"  
  
"So you lied. Over and over again, you lied to me." Harry glared at her accusingly, his green eyes burning. "Was anything you ever told me the truth?"  
  
Ginny's eyes flashed and she threw the glass from her bedside table at him, the water splashing in an arc that ended with glass shards sprinkling down from just behind where his head had been before he ducked. "You sodding bastard. I never lied to you. I might not have told you everything, but you never cared enough to ask."  
  
Harry sneered, the expression twisting his features in an ugly way. "So now it's my fault that you didn't think to mention you were fucking me under false pretenses?"  
  
"No, Harry, it's my fault. It's my fault that I let you sleep with me with your eyes closed, literally and figuratively." Her voice had gotten quiet, her eyes unfocused. "I thought you needed me, and so I gave all I had to you. Everything that was still mine to give."  
  
"Seems like you gave Draco Malfoy more." His voice was cruelly blank, in the way she knew it only got when he was deeply enraged.  
  
"He wanted it." She shrugged. "You never really wanted me, not the person I am. You needed the image you had, of someone sweet and fragile and patient, who wouldn't bother you with demands, and who gave you a reason to be one of the Weasleys."  
  
"Codswallop. I've know you since you were--"  
  
"Harry, you've never known me." She pinched the bridge of her nose, then sighed and looked at him resignedly. "You knew a girl who had a crush on you, Ron's little sister, a tagalong... And then you knew a woman who was completely ruled by your whims. Anything you needed, I was. Just because you needed it. I gave up a lot--"  
  
"And who asked you to?" He might've gone on, but she said quietly, "No one did, Harry," and the wind flew right out of his sails.  
  
He sank down on a chair next to her bed and dropped his face into his hands, unconsciously imitating Draco's posture from earlier. After a long moment, he looked up and said simply, "Why?"  
  
"I loved you, Harry, and you needed someone who would love you. How many times did you tell me you couldn't make it through without me?" She smiled gently, reaching out to brush some hair away from his face.  
  
Harry took hold of her hand and held it, blinking away the tears that were threatening now that the first storm of anger had passed. "But if you love me, why leave me?" She started to speak, but he moved close and crushed her to his chest, pressing his cheek against her hair as he whispered, "Please, please don't leave me."  
  
"I can't stay with you," she said softly. "I'm sorry."  
  
"It's because of bloody Malfoy, isn't it?" Harry snarled. "If he'd kept his pointed nose out of it--"  
  
Ginny interrupted him by saying coldly, "No, it's because of me. I left to be on my own, and I spent several months without his, as you call it, 'pointed nose' being anywhere near me."  
  
"Then why?" He sounded so lost, so hurt and alone, that Ginny felt her heart twist with sorrow that she had to do this to him.  
  
But pity and a desire not to hurt was no basis for a relationship, and so she steeled herself to see it through to the bitter end. Turning away from him, she said, "Harry, what color are my eyes?"  
  
"What? Ginny, this is silly." She wouldn't turn to look at him, didn't say a word as he huffed and rolled his eyes and finally said, "They're brown, just like Ron's are."  
  
She turned back to him, her hazel eyes bright with unshed tears. "Do you see, Harry? You've never seen who I am, never bothered to find out anything about me."  
  
He tried to swallow against the lump in his throat as what she had been saying sunk in. "But Ginny--"  
  
"No, Harry. You'll always be a part of me, but we both deserve more than this half-love... And I'll be damned if I ever again settle for less than I deserve." Her jaw was set, and after a moment of studying her features, he nodded stiffly and walked away.  
  
(Author's Note: Hey, Rainpuddle. :D Hi, Sarea. Hey, everyone else reading. Please don't kill me. Please? I swear by all that's holy that there'll be more (and more satisfying) D/G in the next chapter. More Harry, too, but that can't be helped.) 


	9. Aftermath

Ron was skulking in the corridor, just out of sight of where his mother sat in front of Ginny's door. He wanted desperately to find out what was going on, but his mother had confiscated the only extendable ear he had had, and as it was he didn't even dare move within her range. Not unless he wanted another lecture, and the last one had left him feeling all of six years old. Grimacing, he leaned against the wall and waited, trying to ignore the cramping of the muscles in his crippled leg.  
  
He waited, staying in place even when his Mum left to talk with one of the nurses and then the black lady who'd snarled at him almost as much as Malfoy had got a phone call and hurried away. Truthfully, he wasn't sure at that point if he would be capable of moving. Yes, he thought bitterly, the great war hero Ron Weasley, can't sodding well walk down a hallway. He'd been desperately afraid, during the months of endless visits to medi- wizard after medi-wizard, that he'd lose Hermione, to his own snappishness and misery and belief that he didn't deserve her. She'd stayed, though, always by his side even when he tried to push her away.  
  
Smiling despite the pain, he remembered the day when her temper had finally snapped, and she had literally thrown him onto the ground and sat on him. Her hands had been bunched in his shirt-front as she shook him and started shrieking in a way that boded ill for any of their future children unfortunate enough to merit a howler. There was absolutely no uncertainty to the terms in which he had been told that he had better belt up, or she would cut his legs off herself. Then she had proceeded to show him the benefits of a well-read girlfriend in ways that still made his pulse speed up when he thought of it.  
  
His pleasant thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door closing, and then Harry letting out a breath somewhere between a sigh and a sob. Ron staggered as he tried to push away from the wall and walk towards his best friend, only to have his leg buckle. Fast as lightning, Harry was next to him, supporting Ron's weight on one shoulder while his arms went around Ron's waist to steady him.  
  
"Thanks, mate," Ron said, forcing a wry grin. "I was afraid I'd have to sit out this dance."  
  
Harry shook his head, giving Ron a lopsided smile. "Not while I'm around." They stood for a moment until Ron collected himself and nodded, letting Harry know he was ready to start walking. They made it to the small alcove that held a small table and a pair of vending machines, but more importantly, two chairs.  
  
Ron collapsed into one and then gave his friend a shrewd look. "You look like hell."  
  
"Whereas you're as beautiful as ever," Harry said, balling up a napkin and throwing it at him. Ron grinned and caught it, and they threw it back and forth a few times before Harry said, "It's over."  
  
The look on Ron's face would have been comical in any other circumstances. "But... It can't, you... She loves you, she always has."  
  
"Just not enough," said Harry bitterly. He clenched his jaw and Ron frowned before reaching out to put his hand on Harry's arm.  
  
Stammering, Ron said, "Are you sure?" At Harry's nod, he sighed, then said, "I don't know... I just don't know what Ginny's thinking. Any girl who had you would be an idiot to give you up."  
  
Harry's lips twisted and he turned his hand to clasp Ron's. "Thanks."  
  
"Anytime, mate. You know I love you," Ron said, squeezing Harry's hand tightly. "The best brother I've got, even if your hair's the wrong color."  
  
Molly didn't think that Ron noticed Harry's reaction. After all, with hindsight, Molly could see that she had ignored it for years. Still, something had made her stay quiet and observe their conversation, and she could finally acknowledge to herself the truth no one had allowed themselves to think of. What remained was to speak, for now was the time to interrupt, before things were changed irreparably. "Ron, Hermione called to remind you it's time for your leg exercises, so you need to get back to the inn."  
  
Her son looked up at her with the smile that was always on his face when he thought about his wife and said, "All right, Mum." With a further grin and rolled eyes for Harry, he said, "I'd best be off, before she chases me down. Bloody mental, that girl."  
  
Harry nodded at Ron's retreating back, then stared at the cheap veneer of the tabletop as if the answer to all his grief could be found in the fake wood grain pattern. Molly looked both ways to check for people watching, then cast a spell to glue him to his chair for a moment before finding the nurse in charge of the floor.  
  
"I am the future mother-in-law of the owner of this hospital, and I need a private room in order to discuss something with a member of my family." The nurse stared at Molly for a moment and then sputtered. For the first time in her life, a superior smirk curved Molly's lips and she took great pleasure in saying, "I've already had one person sacked today, and I assure you it would be no trouble to do it again."  
  
Watching the nurse scurrying away to arrange something, Molly grinned in satisfaction and wondered if this was the way Lucius Malfoy had felt all the time.  
  
In short order, Molly was shown to a private room, having collected Harry on the way, and she spared one last thought for how quickly she could get used to wielding power over more than just her family before she turned to Harry and folded him into her arms.  
  
He detached himself quickly, and she nodded, then cast a silencing charm over the room and locked the door. When he looked at her quizzically, she said, "Harry, dearest, you've been like one of my own children since your first year at Hogwarts."  
  
"Thank you, Mrs. Weasley," Harry said, and Molly sighed.  
  
"I've made so many mistakes..." She bit her lip, then gestured with her wand so that they would each have a comfortable chair. Harry sat down, eyeing her warily. "I've failed you, Harry, and I'm sorry for it."  
  
When he would have demurred, she held up a hand, and he fell silent at seeing that familiar steel in her eyes. It had rarely been directed at him over the years, and when it had been, he had regretted it. "It's time to make it right, dear, and the first thing is, Harry, I want you to call me Mum. I've never asked before, because I was worried you'd think it presumptuous, or disrespectful of your own mother, but I should have, and it's past time for it."  
  
"But... Mrs. Weasley, with Ginny, it's... It's over." Harry had looked at her for a moment in shock before he dropped his eyes to stare fiercely at the toes of his shoes.  
  
"Harry, my precious boy," Molly said softly, raising his chin so he had no choice but to look into her eyes. "That doesn't matter."  
  
"It matters to me," Harry said sulkily, pulling away from Molly's grip and folding his arms tightly over his chest. "I love her, and--"  
  
"But you don't love her in the way that I love Arthur, or that Ron loves Hermione." Molly took a deep breath, and then found her courage failed her. Instead of what she'd been going to say, she continued, "If you had, nothing could have stopped you from marrying her years ago. I think... I think that if I hadn't been such a stubborn fool, I'd have accepted that years ago, would've seen..."  
  
She trailed off, and Harry looked at her, open-mouthed. With a wry smile, she said, "I'm not making much sense, am I?"  
  
"Did you know that I volunteered to take you in? Your father was a relative of mine, if a somewhat distant one. As soon as I heard about your parents, I went to Dumbledore and asked if I could bring you home." Harry shuddered as if he'd been dealt a blow, but Molly barely noticed, looking into the distance of memory. "I asked again every year on the anniversary of their death, and then once I'd met you, I asked so often that Dumbledore would practically leap into broom closets to avoid me."  
  
Harry swallowed hard, trying not to think of what his life might have been like if he had grown up with a real family. "He- He had his reasons, as it turned out."  
  
A nod was her only response, and they were silent a moment. Finally, Molly said, "I pushed you and Ginny together because that way I'd have a right to be your mother. It..." She trailed off again, wishing it wasn't such a struggle to find the right words. "She grew up hearing all about you. The boys would get bored and roll their eyes, but Ginny always wanted to hear about you. She'd make up stories where you would play together and then later she'd talk about how sad you always were, even when you seemed happy, and how she wished she could help you."  
  
Bitterly, Harry said, "No one asked her to appoint herself my savior." He saw Molly's stricken look and flinched, but continued, "And now it's me who's left alone, because I loved her and she didn't love me."  
  
Molly's lips pressed into a thin line. "She loved you, and she loves you still, just the same way you love her." Her voice softened as she finally delivered the necessary blow to his composure. "But it's not the way that lovers should feel about each other. It's not the same way that you love Ron."  
  
With a gasp, Harry said, "Ron and Hermione belong together! I'd never--"  
  
"I know." Molly's cheeks were damp as she looked at him with sorrow and understanding. "And I know that it hurts, darling."  
  
His face twisted as he tried to rein in the emotions that he'd hidden from himself for so long, had tried to crush and destroy before they endangered everything in his world that he cared about. He bit his lip so hard that it bled, but it did no good. He could feel grief and pain and sorrow, regrets for what might have been and what never could be and what he had done, what Ginny had done, every mistake that had been made in the name of a misguided belief in what was the right thing to do. He dropped his chin to his chest in a last ditch attempt to control or at least conceal his emotions.  
  
Molly, a mother for so long that she could barely remember being otherwise, stood by his chair and gathered him into her arms just as the first sob overwhelmed him. His arms wrapped around her and he held on as he cried, the sadness of a lifetime pouring out of him as he was rocked in the arms of the only mother he had ever known.  
  
(Author's Note: The reason this update took so long is that Monki, evil wench that she is, pointed out something very important about Harry, and I fought it for a long time before finally giving in. The next update won't take anywhere near as long - the absolute latest I would post it would be Tuesday the ninth, since that's Annibug's birthday. In the meantime, please don't kill me, the D/G goodness is coming.) 


	10. Gratification

Ginny lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling tiles that she had memorized in the fragments of time she had spent awake over the past several days. She could feel the storms of emotion that had been raging through her calming and dying, leaving her feeling both weightless and grounded. It was as if she had sunk roots deep into the earth even as she was bent and swayed by the wind.

She chuckled at the fanciful thought, and for the first time in much too long, her laughter wasn't followed by a twinge of pain as she wondered what Draco would think. Miraculously, she could tell him and find out, and all it cost was a near-death experience, her unborn child, and a significant dose of crippling emotional pain. Shaking her head over the bitter turn her thoughts were taking, she rubbed a hand over her eyes and tried to sit up.

"Doctor says you might go home soon. Could be tomorrow if that spell your friend with the nappy hair came up with works." Neeko's voice made Ginny jump with surprise, nearly dislodging her IV in the process. Beaded braids clacking, Neeko laughed, then laughed harder as she caught the pillow that Ginny threw at her. "Sure are ornery today, aren't you?"

"I'd show you how much if I didn't have all this rigmarole attached," Ginny said as she wiggled the needle back into place and adjusted the bandage around it.

Neeko sat down next to Ginny's bed and looked at her shrewdly. "You given any thought to where you're going to go?"

Without a thought of hesitation, Ginny said wryly, "Whither he goest." At Neeko's raised eyebrow, she shrugged and continued. "It'd be more sensible to wait, to get to know each other again, to sort things out and give Harry a chance to adjust and all that other rot, but I've waited long enough."

"Life's too short for wasting it," Neeko said. "So as long as you're sure..."

"I am." Ginny's lips twisted into a half-grimace. "Of course, it depends in part on what he says."

Neeko snorted and swatted at Ginny's leg. "Child, that man would follow you into fire, let alone out of the hospital. So you just make sure you're back here for Thanksgiving and I'll go get him for you now."

"Thank you. For everything." Ginny swallowed hard, her eyes brimming with unshed tears. "I owe you so much--"

"You saved my baby's life, honey. Ain't nothing you owe me that wasn't paid and paid again by that." Neeko squeezed Ginny's hand, then stood up. Just before she walked out of the door, she said, "Of course, you could tell Hermione to get her nappy head into my beauty shop so's I can fix up that hair of hers. If you still think you owe me something."

Ginny laughed, then brought her hand up to see whatever it was that Neeko had placed in it. Her locket, familiar as her own skin, winked up at her. Carefully, she ran her finger along the seam and pried it open, curious to know, after all these years, what was inside it. The picture of herself, looking like a drowned rat as she emerged from the lake at Hogwarts only to drip on Malfoy, as she thought of him then, made her laugh again. That'd been the first week back in his sixth year, when he'd finally stopped sulking about the Bat-Bogey hex she'd had to use on him before the summer holidays. 

"That was when I first realized just how much you meant," Draco said from where he had been leaning against the door, watching her stare at the picture with a smile lighting up her tear-damp face. "The first time I conjured a patronus, it was with that memory."

Ginny smiled weakly. "Just as well I didn't know this was there. I'd have opened it just to see the picture."

"Hmm, and think of all the trauma you would have averted," Draco said lazily, sitting on the side of her bed and tweaking her hair. "Fixed it up for Potter, did you?"

Arching an eyebrow, she pushed her hair back from her face. "Harry did it. Why, do you like it better this way?"

"The color suits you better," he said neutrally. "But the so-called style makes you vaguely resemble a sheepdog, and your ends could use some attention."

"Tell me, then, since you're so clever and all, how would you like to see my hair?" Ginny's teasing grin and flashing eyes faltered as they met his smoldering ones.

"Spread across my pillow. Forming a curtain around us as you writhe on top of me. Sifting through my fingers as you lay against my bare chest." He shrugged, his hand hovering just above her cheek. "Any of those sound good to me."

She wanted to close her eyes and concentrate on the warmth of his hand cradling her face, but she couldn't rip her gaze away from him. "You... You really mean that, don't you? Even though I was with Harry for so long?"

Draco stiffened and turned to look grimly out of the window. "Yes, well, you're not now, so let's just strive to erase the Boy Who Wouldn't Die from our memories, shall we?"

"And that's exactly why I couldn't go to you," Ginny said wistfully, one hand covering her abdomen, and trying not to cry at how flat it was.

His head whipped back around to her and she flinched at the look in his eyes. "Listen carefully, Weasel, this isn't something I want to repeat."

"I loathe Potter, and I hate that you were with him, but you could fuck your way across two continents and I would still want you. Yes, I want for your children to be mine, but I would have loved this child regardless, because it would have been _yours_." Ginny looked at him dumbly as he raked a hand through his hair before glaring at her. "Don't you understand? When it comes to you, I have no pride, no reason, no dignity, nothing at all that matters except for you, your smile and your sarcasm and your damn idiocy that makes me want to shake you until you finally see sense, and then kiss you until you lose it again."

After a moment of silence in which he glared at her with all the vitriol he had reserved for the golden trio in school, his lips quirked and he said, "Of course, it's not like it'd take much. You never did have the sense God gave a goose."

"Arse," muttered Ginny. "You'd best be grateful I love you so much, or I wouldn't find it endearing."

He dodged the slap she aimed at his shoulder and instead grasped her wrist and brought her hand to his face. "I'd ask if you're sure, but I'm not giving you a chance to change your mind."

Ginny's eyes softened and she caressed him gently, pushing a lock of hair behind his ear and smiling. "Draco..." Hiding her momentary grin by pressing her lips to his, she then pulled her face into a grimace and shook a finger at him. "Pay attention, because I'm not going to repeat myself. You're a tremendous prat, and always have been, and if you weren't, I wouldn't be half so deeply in love with you. Which I am. Completely and totally. For years and years, which just make me stupider for not having grabbed on with both hands long ago."

His lips were being pressed closed by her finger now, and he opened his mouth to take a nibble. "Stop that. I'm trying to shout at you, here." He looked at her with wide, too-innocent eyes and she grinned. "Oh, sod that. Come here and kiss me."

He obeyed, his lips soft and gentle on hers. This lasted for about three seconds before things started becoming frantic, Draco's shirt tugged completely off his body, Ginny's head thrown back as he bit the skin at the base of her neck, then soothed the spot with his tongue. She thought she might faint from the bliss of his hand traveling up her leg, the heavy coldness of his signet ring an exciting contrast to the heat and gentleness of his fingers. 

Just as Ginny had managed to undo his belt and he had latched onto one of her nipples through the thin cotton hospital gown, the door was thrown open and a sharp gasp drew their attention to an extremely shocked nurse. Draco pulled the blanket up over Ginny, then rolled off the bed to gather his discarded shirt. The nurse's eyes wouldn't leave his chest, and Ginny was torn between a blush and a scowl, finally settling on, "Did you need something?"

Draco became the recipient of Ginny's wrathful stare as he barely stifled a chuckle, first at Ginny's tone, then at the way the nurse stammered something about checking on a sudden spike in blood pressure. As soon as the door had closed behind the woman, Ginny buried her face in her hands and groaned.

"Cheer up, love, you might only have to deal with her for another day," Draco said, his eyes dancing.

This somehow failed to comfort Ginny, and Draco sat down beside her once more, trailing his hand up and down her body despite her repeated attempts to slap him away. "Come on, Ginny, tell me what you want. Should I have her killed? Obliviated? Sacked?"

Ginny sighed and brought her laughing face out from where it'd been hidden. "Shut up, Malfoy, and start planning where we're going to honeymoon." He leaned in to capture her lips again and she placed a hand on each of his cheeks and looked him deeply in the eyes. "I love you, Draco Malfoy. I want to spend my life with you, have your children, and make you laugh at least once a day."

He crushed her to him, burying his nose in her hair as they held each other tightly. "I love you, too, Ginny Weasley, and all of that can definitely be arranged." 

(Author's Note: Ta DA! Yep, story's done. There's going to be an epilogue, at some point, but I managed to get it finished for Annibug's birthday, and so I'm fairly happy about that. :D Hopefully y'all are satisfied; this story's the first time I've really gone for an angst-driven plotline, and I've wibbled about whether it's any good since day one... When it was supposed to be a one-shot Harry and Ginny story, with no Draco in it at all. Yeah, it did kinda grow a bit. Rivendell, I meant to email or mention in the last author's note, I'm in Hinesville. :) I worked in downtown Savannah for a while, and my mom lives in Southside. I figured I'd write what I knew. LadyRhiyana, thanks for reviewing, as it gives me a nifty little fangirlish ego-boost, since I like and admire your deft touch for drama. Wizzabee, I took liberties with Ginny's eye color in order to boost the point that Harry's never noticed her, especially since in the books it's from Harry's POV and thus if it says in the books that her eyes are brown, that's what Harry thinks. TotS (and anyone else who felt similarly), I apologize for the unanticipatedly in-love-with-Ron!Harry, but it was the way the story wanted to be written; I either dropped the story for good or cooperated. And, quite frankly, I was afraid Annibug (and possibly Rainpuddle) would come after me with sharp implements if I abandoned the story. Kirixchi would start to, but then I could write up some Lucius/Narcissa smut and she'd get distracted. ;)

So, well, hopefully I can be forgiven for all the cliffhangers, which upon reflection were probably a bit more evil than strictly necessary, and that you enjoyed this foray I took into the world of angst. I'm still not sure how good I am at it, but all in all I enjoyed the writing. If you feel like I left an end loose that you'd like fixed, let me know and I'll see what I can do about tying it in the epilogue.

--Sharlene)


	11. Epilogue Christmas

(So, yeah, I suck. The last chapter of this story was published on Annibug's birthday, and I'm only getting to the epilogue now... On her next birthday. Still, happy birthday, Anni!)

"Now, Percy, you sit here, dear." Molly guided him to a spot at the table and kissed his cheek before bustling back to the stove. "So are you seeing anyone these days? That young man you introduced us to a month ago..."

"Is no longer in the picture," said Percy, eyeing his mother suspiciously. "I'm seeing--"

"Hello, hello!" caroled Angelina from the doorway, carrying a huge bag of presents. "I'm the first of the invading horde! Neeko and the others are less than five minutes behind me."

Two pops in the living room heralded the arrival of Ginny and Draco, who could be heard complaining about not having the festivities at Malfoy Manor and the dangers of apparating while pregnant. Ginny blithely ignored him, coming in to kiss her mother before sitting down to chat with Percy. Draco stood in the doorway for a long moment, staring at the wobbly tables that had been set up in a space much too small to contain them. "Bugger that."

A few spells later and the wall between the kitchen and family room had disappeared, replaced by a graceful arch supporting the beams above. Next the tables disappeared, to be replaced by a single mahogany length that stretched far into the family room. The chairs popped away one by one, replaced by a series of beautifully upholstered ones which matched the French Provincial style of the table. Percy squawked as his didn't quite reappear quickly enough and he landed on the floor, but Ginny laughed and just switched chairs before her old one disappeared. The family room furnishings arranged themselves against one wall, looking newly polished, and the carpets even rolled themselves out of the way before a second, much smaller table appeared. Draco nodded in satisfaction. "Much better."

"Draco Malfoy, what have you done to my house?" Molly was holding a spoon dripping with sauce and looming over the cool blond despite his considerable height advantage.

"I made everything more comfortable," he said, seating himself next to Ginny. "Call it a Christmas present if you like."

Molly glared at him. "This was for your own good, not mine," she said, waving the spoon. "You still owe me a gift." She whirled and gave the sauce another stir, then looked over her shoulder. "I haven't been on holiday in years, you know, and I understand Torremolinos is very nice."

Ginny shook her head and stood up to dig in her pocket for a galleon, which she handed to her very smug husband. He grinned and accepted it, then took Molly in his arms and gave her a loud, smacking kiss on the cheek. "What on earth was that for?"

"Because you're getting much better at being idly rich," Draco said. "Although I'm afraid I'd already bought the tickets for a five-star resort in Barbados instead. Just try to be sure Arthur doesn't kill anyone with the rental car."

"Showing off again, Malfoy?" Hermione seemed more amused than hostile as she entered through the family room archway. Ron was directly behind her and glaring at Draco, and so all was right with the world. The two men had made a single attempt to get along amicably and it had finally ended when their cruel wives had stopped laughing long enough to tell them they could stop.

"Course he is," said Neeko, who had come in from the back door trailed by her extended family and by Harry. "But if it means I don't gotta bump my elbows to eat, he can be as big a showoff as he wants."

The two women exchanged a somewhat distant hug, then more enthusiastic ones were distributed among the various Weasleys and the American Grangers, who had been discovered to be extremely distant relations to Hermione. Finally, as they all settled in at the tables, Leela grousing at being stuck with the children at the smaller one, Harry detached himself from Molly's bear hug and said shyly, "Mum, you remember Luna Lovegood, don't you? We've been seeing each other for several weeks now."

"Of course," said Molly, looking a bit confused. She rallied quickly with only the barest of disappointed glances towards Percy and proceeded to fuss over both Harry and Luna until it was time to serve the meal.

Draco watched it all from where he sat with his arms around his wife, his hands resting on her distended stomach. "He's active today, isn't he?"

"I guess she's excited about Christmas," said Ginny, brushing a kiss onto his neck. "I love you, you know."

"Thank you," he said, his hand squeezing her stomach briefly before he buried his face in her shoulder. Never in a thousand years would he admit to even the slightest hint of a possibility that there were sentimental tears threatening to form in his eyes. He thought Ginny might know, though, because he heard her snickering.

Then again, maybe not. Ginny wasn't the only one who went from muffled snickers to full-out laughter when Harry could be heard across the table shouting, "MUM! You're /embarrassing/ me!" Percy meanwhile was rolling his eyes and saying, "Honestly, Mother, have you never heard of bisexuality, not once? And Harry's not my type even if both of us weren't seeing girls at the moment."

"What's wrong with Harry? I'd want him if I was a bender!" Ron's passionate defense of his friend sent Hermione off into a fit of giggles and had Molly staring at him in horror. Harry just laughed and threw a roll across the table to land with a buttery splat on Ron's nose. Draco groaned and slid under the table as the food fight began in earnest. Even his normally sane wife was tossing around vegetables with gusto and accuracy. He saw Neeko appear under the table as well and felt relieved that at least he'd have someone sensible to talk to.

This happy thought was doomed to a quick death as she gave him an evil smile before blinding him with a handful of mashed potatoes. Resigned, he crawled back into his chair and watched the entire clan for a few moments before shrugging and saying, "What the hell."

A mince pie met Perfect Potter's face shortly thereafter and Draco thought that this was, quite possibly, the happiest anyone had ever felt.


End file.
